Starting in January, 17 Korean high school students from Gwacheon City South Korea visited the Burlington School in North Carolina, while staying with local host families for two weeks. This was the seventh time the school has hosted a Korean group from Gwacheon, which has been the sister city of Burlington since 2011. As part of a cultural exchange program, the students enhanced their English language skills, experienced American culture, and formed ties with local people by playing instruments together and exchanging gifts.

The cities have discussed the possibility of starting a Taekwondo exchange program which would be open to all taekwondo students in Burlington. Taekwondo students in Burlington have previously visited Gwacheon City every two years, and students from Gwacheon have visited the United States for a taekwondo summer camp. Taekwondo students had the opportunity to learn from South Korean masters in Gwacheon City’s six academies, while South Korean students learned how to teach taekwondo to students from other cultural backgrounds.

North Carolina has one of the top ten fastest growing Korean populations among US states. At the same time, the population of Korean Americans in North Carolina increased by 44% between 2010 and 2016, totaling27,640 in 2016. Korean airlines offer regular non-stop flights from various cities in South Korea to Burlington.

In addition, the US is the preferred place for Korean students to study. According to the OECD, 31.7 % of international South Korean students chose to study in the United States. South Korean students are the third largest source of international students to the United States, with over 63,000 international students from South Korea making up 6.5% of total foreign enrollments. They contributed $2.3 billion to the US economy in 2014 through tuition, fees, and living expenses. In 2016, Undergraduates accounted for 54.4% of all South Korean students studying in the United States.

Yeseul Oh is a Research Intern at the East-West Center in Washington D.C. and an Asan Wahshington Young fellow with the Asan Academy in Seoul. She is a student of Kyunghee university in South Korea